MERCHANT SEAMEN WANT COMPENSATION --

Merchant seamen have been nursing a

grudge ever since WWII ended.

Story here... http://thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16735457&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=416046&rfi=6

Story below:

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Merchant seamen want compensation

BY BILL WAGNER
STAFF WRITER


A lot of merchant seamen have been nursing a grudge against their Uncle Sam ever since World War II ended. After risking their lives carrying men and munitions to battlefronts across the Atlantic and Pacific, they were passed out of service with little more than a thank-you. One of those sailors is Ed Buzza, of Moosic.

The service and heroism of men like Mr. Buzza in the U.S. Merchant Marine are finally being recognized by Pennsylvania, but getting recognition and veterans’ benefits from the U.S. Congress is another matter. Like Mr. Buzza, most merchant seamen were not issued formal discharge papers when their duties ended. That was when they discovered risking their lives would not be rewarded with the numerous benefits included in the GI Bill accorded other war veterans.

But better days appear to be coming. In July, Pennsylvania will provide a bonus under a newly enacted law, Act 22 of 2006, the Merchant Marine World War II Veteran Bonus Program. Though application instructions have yet to be finalized, applicants will need a Form DD-214, which, according to Mr. Buzza, was not supplied when he left the Merchant Marine after the war.

Those forms and instructions are available at the office of Lackawanna County Director of Veterans Affairs Tom Bradley, Spruce Street and North Washington Avenue. Monday, Thursday and Friday were suggested as the best times to visit the office.

Those years when their sea service was ignored are typified by the story of Mr. Buzza. Many years ago, he was walking around Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, he says, when he saw signs touting service in the Merchant Marine. He recalls wondering, “What’s this? A new branch of the service?” He soon found out.

“They’d send you to Philadelphia for a physical and if you passed, you went to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, N.Y., for three months of boot camp,” he said. He signed on. In August 1944, he was put into the U.S. Coast Guard, then discharged and told he was now a member of the Merchant Marine.

His first ship was a tanker, the SS Egg Harbor, on which he sailed from Baltimore to Guadalcanal. “No escort, no convoy, seven knots top speed,” he said. At Guadalcanal, they were directed to Tulagi Bay, 24 hours away, where two Navy tankers came alongside and “sucked us dry.” By then, it was Thanksgiving Day 1944 and the SS Egg Harbor sailed for California.

Mr. Buzza left the ship and returned to the East Coast, to Brooklyn, where he boarded a Liberty Ship, the Oliver Carey, for three trips to Antwerp, Belgium. Then he sailed on another tanker, the SS Gulf Crest.

None of Mr. Buzza’s vessels came under enemy fire, but the risks still were there, he said. “See, this was during that wartime period which is considered combat,” he said.

And there were perils besides the sea — U-boats and dive bombers. The Merchant Marine had a casualty rate roughly that of the U.S. Marine Corps. An estimated 730 ships were sunk with a loss of an estimated 2,800 men. Historians put the loss rate at one man in 26.

Mr. Buzza’s last voyage was aboard the SS Mormac Moon and it lasted 13 months, mostly to ports in the Black Sea. Their first port was Gibraltar, where they were routed to Istanbul through the Dardanelles Strait.

“You’ll never believe this,” he said, “it was a troop transport combination, a ship that was supposed to carry troops over to Europe. We were shuttling from Romania, Bulgaria and all the way back to Istanbul to pick up all the materials you couldn’t get back here in the states and taking them to Russia. Cars, tractors, all kinds of deck cargo.”

At the end of it, Mr. Buzza found there were no benefits for Merchant Marine members — except for a letter of thanks from President Harry S. Truman. “So I got out of it and joined the Air Force,” he said. He served 21 years before retiring.

Because of their wartime service, the former sailors have organized as the U.S. Merchant Marine Combat Veterans Just Compensation Committee and are pressing Congress for the GI Bill of Rights benefits they feel have been denied them for so many years. Pennsylvania has 900 members, with the chapter nearest to Mr. Buzza in Matamoras.

Bills before Congress are House bill HR23 and Senate bill S1272. If the legislation passes, Merchant Mariners will receive lifetime, tax-free monthly benefits of $1,000 which, after the mariner’s death, could be transferred to a surviving spouse for the rest of their lives.

Some veterans organizations are opposing passage of the bills, fearing they would cut into funding budgeted for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Spokesmen for the mariners say the impact would be minor, two-tenths of one percent of the budget allocation. Fewer than 10,000 survivors of the mariner service would benefit, they told a Veterans Affairs subcommittee.

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Larry Scott

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